Starvation mode question

canaveral

So i was thinking about starvation mode and i want to know why they say ohhh if you eat under 1200 calories you will just stop losing because you will go into starvation mode. Well then how do anorexics lose weight???? From their excessive exercise? Now i would like to state by no means am i anorexic or bulemic i eat my 1400 a day and am losing just fine (4 so far!) but it just doesnt make any sense to me... I want to know why they say that if people still eat under 1200 and lose a lot... Curious cat i guess lol

awestfall

So i was thinking about starvation mode and i want to know why they say ohhh if you eat under 1200 calories you will just stop losing because you will go into starvation mode. Well then how do anorexics lose weight???? From their excessive exercise? Now i would like to state by no means am i anorexic or bulemic i eat my 1400 a day and am losing just fine (4 so far!) but it just doesnt make any sense to me... I want to know why they say that if people still eat under 1200 and lose a lot... Curious cat i guess lol

I would love to know the answer to this question as well.Let me know if you find an answer because I am losing weight just fine as well:flowerforyou:

courtney_love2001

It's not necessarily that you will stop losing weight, it's that it will happen slower. Your body will try to conserve any calories that it gets because it doesn't know the next time it will get calories, which slows your metabolism. If you eat very few calories, there is no doubt that you will lose a bunch of weight, but it is unhealthy to do so, as you know. I think people emphasize "starvation mode" so much because we are all trying to lose weight the healthy way, and starving yourself is not healthy. Scare tactic I think, and I'm definitely listening!

ChristyJade

I was wondering also - Is it okay to go under calories for just a day? I have only had 700 cals today, and hadn't realised cause I have just done my food diary now, but its bed time! So I am not gonna go and eat 500 cals!

xxChristy

davinia

I think the point is to have healthy weight loss that you can maintain. Eating under 1200 calories EVERY day for the rest of your life, may not be realistic. It also depends what your eating. You want a well balanced diet. Food also protects us from getting sick etc..

I guess the answer is, of course you're gonna lose weight the less calories you eat but once you start eating normally again, your body will store the fat because it will be affraid that you'll "starve" it again.

Hope that helps.

dragonfly183

I ate 800 calories or less for 3 months while taking diet pills and lost 27 pounds. I never stopped loosing weight. As I began to weigh less and less I did start loosing weight slower. My theory was I weighed less so I was burning less calories doing the same things. I am now off the diet pills and its not very difficult for me to stay under 1800 calories which is what I need to stay under to continue loosing at a much slower rate. I am not putting on fat because I am eating more either. I did slowly increase my calories as I neared the end of my course of diet pills though and that may have made a difference.

rosabella

It's not a scare tactic, it's something your body actually does. From my understanding, when you eat less than 1200 calories per day (or more depending on your size) your brain instructs your body to convert everything you eat to fat (not muscle, not healthy organ tissue!) and hold onto it as long as possible. So when you do start eating say, 1200 calories or more per day, your body will for a while try to store the difference between the low amount you were eating and the healthy amount as fat, which is what we mean by "slowing your metabolism".

Anorexics do lose weight, but it is a high percentage of healthy organ, bone and muscle tissue lost along with the fat, because their bodies stop rebuilding healthy tissue to frantically try to store any fat, because they are literally starving. And that doesn't sound like a healthy lifestyle to me!

Lorann

It is my understanding at least it was for me that in Starvation mode you don't eat regularly, the dietitian told me because I didn't eat anything until supper time every day for many years that my body was in starvation mode and that it didn't matter what I did eat at supper my body would store it all as fat, ended up being 300lbs from not eating... so I'm not sure if you can go into starvation mode if you ate only 1000 calories or not ... but I do know that a lot of my suppers I would eat were over a 1000 calories (fast food) and I was still in starvation mode.

I'm not sure if that helped at all :laugh: just thought i would share that.

rosabella

I was wondering also - Is it okay to go under calories for just a day? I have only had 700 cals today, and hadn't realised cause I have just done my food diary now, but its bed time! So I am not gonna go and eat 500 cals!

xxChristy

Hey Christy, i think for one day that is fine! I vary my calories every few days anywhere from 1100-1500, always averaging to about 1300/day every week, because I think my body gets "used" to eating the same amount every single day... but if you eat under 1200 calories for multiple days per week it will get dangerous. My advice would be to eat a handful of nuts or an avocado, both great for you but give your body some fuel and bring you closer to the 1000 range. Good luck! :flowerforyou:

tiff1632

First...DON'T EVER STARVE YOURSELF!!!!!!!!!
Second:
If you starve yourself to lose weight, you will find rapid weight loss. You'll lose the weight right off, and you'll look great. HUGE PROBLEM WITH THIS. Your body is smart!!!!!! It knows that you starved it, so as soon as you start eating again, it stores ANYTHING and EVERYTHING it can from the food you are eating, just in case you starve yourself again so that it has something to live off of. When your body is storing all of these things, you'll find yourself gaining weight again rapidly, sometimes more than you initially lost. There's no way to stop this either (unless you increase your intake so you body know you are going to be starving it again..) However, unless you stop eating again, but then the next time you eat your body will again store anything it can take from the food you're eating. Starving yourself to lose weight sounds like an OK idea, but it ends up being harmful. (Also note, people that did starve themselves for a long time never get back to 100% for the rest of their life...not as shine hair, more wrinkles, duller skin, and likely a HUGE physical list of problems from it...trust me...)

Simply stated...if YOU DON'T EAT your MINIMUM calories your body needs to function it is store anything (AS FAT!!) that comes in your mouth. If you have been going UNDER your cals (say 1200) then it knows it and stores the next thing you eat...good or bad food. AND eat the cals you burn from working out. Soooo if you have hit a place where you are not losing and you thinking lowing your food is the best way to "get going again...." STOP and EAT MORE! You will be happily surprised when you are losing weight and eating more....

In short, always always always eat your calories...and if this mean you need to have a jar of peanut butter and toast before you end your day...do it. Your body is soooo much starter than the one "controlling" it!!

:flowerforyou:

rosabella

Sorry to triple post, but you should also read this:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/777-why-is-starvation-mode-so-bad

Good luck!

vdaisyh

Been on MFP now for a week, reading posts and wondering along the same lines. Last month my doctor suggested an 800 calorie/day "liquid diet" (OptiFast) and I decided against it and found myself here instead. Just curious how, if the body so quickly goes into starvation mode, people on doctor-monitored liquid diets - or even very low calorie diets - drop so much weight. My doctor said it would be about 100 pounds in 9 months. Ideas?

Mimis5

I'm on 1200 cals per day, on drs. orders. I think everyone is different. I need to have a minimum of 50-60grms of protein per day as well as some healthy fats, fiber etc. I think visiting a nutritionist and having them design an eating plan for you personally is good. In my case I had Lap-Band surgery last October, and my eating plan is going well for me. The only thing the band does is limit portion size, so I eat 3 small meals and 3 snacks.

lotusfromthemud

Been on MFP now for a week, reading posts and wondering along the same lines. Last month my doctor suggested an 800 calorie/day "liquid diet" (OptiFast) and I decided against it and found myself here instead. Just curious how, if the body so quickly goes into starvation mode, people on doctor-monitored liquid diets - or even very low calorie diets - drop so much weight. My doctor said it would be about 100 pounds in 9 months. Ideas?

First of all, extremely low calorie diets are only appropriate if you have a lot of weight to lose, and are under a Dr.'s care. Essentially, the body fat reserves are what you're "eating" for energy on such a drastic diet. Even then, the weight is more likely to come back if you lose it quickly, and don't establish new, healthier lifelong habits that help you keep it off.

Starvation mode only becomes a problem if you're eating consistently at a very low deficit and not particularly heavy to begin with.

And yes, you can lose weight in starvation mode, but you're not just losing body fat, you're losing muscle mass. This is very, very, very bad. It's why anorexics and bulimics die young from heart attacks (like Karen Carpenter did) they lose muscle mass in their hearts. Not to sound cold, but anorexics are actually starving to death, the very epitome of starvation mode. Also, long term anorexics stay alive for an alarmingly long time on virtually no food, a testament to how well the body can reserve its resources if so stressed.

Remember always, the less you have to lose, the smaller your deficit should be in order to not lose muscle mass. You want to lose body fat, not just body weight.

canaveral

I'd like to state again i'm NOT starving myself i was just curious!!! 1400 a day!

Falcon

On youtube there's a story done where 2 journalists go onto a crash diet to drop five dress sizes in five weeks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gY9LLMTCjwg&feature=related

Definitely something to watch and full of info.

jam0525

A lot of good facts posted by many of you.

The company I work for as a nutritionist in their Employee Health department. The only thing she has been telling us that I can really add to this is to never skip breakfast or go more than 4-5 hours without eating.

She says breakfast should be with 1-2 hours of waking up.

She actually encourages 3 meals and 2 snacks so that your eating every few hours.

courtney_love2001

What I meant by "scare tactic" was exactly what you said--this is what your body actually does if it is deprived, and it scares me! :yawn:

rosabella

What I meant by "scare tactic" was exactly what you said--this is what your body actually does if it is deprived, and it scares me! :yawn:

lol! Yeah, your body isn't too happy with you when all of this happens! :laugh:

adopt4

Been on MFP now for a week, reading posts and wondering along the same lines. Last month my doctor suggested an 800 calorie/day "liquid diet" (OptiFast) and I decided against it and found myself here instead. Just curious how, if the body so quickly goes into starvation mode, people on doctor-monitored liquid diets - or even very low calorie diets - drop so much weight. My doctor said it would be about 100 pounds in 9 months. Ideas?

Sure, for very obese people they can go on really low calories under a drs supervision. It is very hard on your body, it stresses your heart, etc. But, like was already mentioned, as soon as you (a) stop eating the liquid diet or (b) eat real food your body will convert it into fat and you'll balloon up again. That's why diets don't work - that's why people yo-yo, as soon as they go back to eating what would normally be maintenance calories, the body balloons back up with fat, although if not in starvation mode the body would have used those cals as energy.

Of course if you don't eat hardly anything, you'll lose weight. You'll lose muscle, too, because muscle is easier to burn that fat, so your body will attack the muscles first. Ever seen a buff anorexic?? No, they're just skin and bones.

Also, when you lose a lot of weight quickly your skin can't keep up, and so you get big bags of skin that will never reduce. Plastic surgery would be the only answer. But if you do it the right way, slowly, letting your skin keep up with your weight loss and feeding your body what it needs so it's healthy, you will have a much less chance of all that extra skin, depending on the body you started with.

If you weigh 700 pounds and your dr puts you on a plan, sure. But if you weigh 300 pounds or less, then you can do it this way!!!

annaliza

On youtube there's a story done where 2 journalists go onto a crash diet to drop five dress sizes in five weeks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gY9LLMTCjwg&feature=related

Definitely something to watch and full of info

Thanks for that....it was very interesting to watch!!!

Based on that video, I'm avoiding starvation mode.

Besides, who wants to eat next to nothing for the rest of your life??